Assistant Professor Emeritus

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Having lived and worked in diverse academic settings on several continents, I am acquainted with various linguistic systems, and have done research on projects ranging from theoretical to computational linguistics.As Director of ESL in the CAS Writing Program, I keep abreast of the developments in the dynamic field of second-language writing pedagogy, which inform the evolving curriculum of ESL courses for BU’s international students. My experience and research interests in applied linguistics and language teaching frequently take me to universities abroad as a visiting scholar and faculty training consultant.The Linguistic Problems in TESOL class that I traditionally teach allows me to explore the nature of English as a global language and to reconcile theoretical and applied linguistic perspectives. I have a keen interest in interdisciplinary approaches that seek to maximize students’ linguistic competence and cross-cultural awareness, and I enjoy mentoring both graduate and undergraduate students bound for language teaching careers.

Selected Publications
  • “Guide for Multilingual Writers,” The New McGraw-Hill Handbook (2007)
  • “Notes for Multilingual Students,” A Writer’s Resource (2006)
  • “Cognitive Grammar,” Models of Functional Grammars. (Soros Award from the “Best Books of the Year” Elsevier Competition) (1991)
  • “Cognitive and Linguistic Invariants in Interlingual Communication,” Lund Papers in Cognitive Science (1990)
  • “Analysis of Interlingual Interference through Modeling of Linguistic Subsets,” CICL Publications (1989)
  • “Some Manifestations of Syntactic Interference in Translation from English into Bulgarian,” Linguistic Problems of Translation (1987)
  • “H. Beardsmore’s “Bilingualism: Main Issues and Principles,” Journal of Contrastive Linguistics 5 (1986)
Honors, Grants, and Awards
  • Fulbright Senior Scholar Award (2007)
  • Excellence in Teaching Award, Harvard University IEL (1995, 2001)
  • DAAD Research Fellow in Computational Linguistics, University of the Saarland (1989-1991)
  • Visiting scholar: Lund University (1991), University of Leuven (1990), Roskilde University (1990), Delhi University (1990), Charles University (1989), Budapest University (1988)